Korniag Theatre arose in the Belarusian theatre context unexpectedly and in a very timely manner. In the days of monopoly of state theaters Korniag Theatre declared itself at inception as independent, unique and experimental. Korniag Theatre exists in paradoxical terms: the theater has no stage area, no permanent troupe or rehearsal space.What is Korniag Theatre? First of all it is Evgeniy Korniag personally, and the young Belarusian actors and artists who want to work together with him. Everything that falls into the gravity field of Evgeniy Korniag’s creative personality acquires a different, unpredictable, unexpected dimension. There are no creative compromises, no following of accustomed and disseminated standards in this dimension. Korniag copies nobody and continues no tradition.
The director says no to everything: to the rules, recipes, and stereotypes. He created his own model of the theater, where language of signs and symbols form the heart of the acting and imaginative aesthetics, which is independent from the semantic value of the words. As a director, Korniag is personally interested in the possibility of the theater, not in the possibilities of dramatic literature. You can’t reduce projects directed by Evgeny to a single dominant genre and stylistic paradigm. He boldly mixes various expressive techniques of stage practices — choreography and dramatic theater, mime and grotesque, creating with all this a multi-discipline reality. However, the basis chosen by the director could be defined as physical theater. A soul becomes a body in the performances of Korniag and the actor’s gestural flexibility, plastic, psychophysical energy are the essential tools to create a scenic image.
About
Korniag Theatre filled an empty niche in experiments with the human body on the Belarusian stage, where the actor’s physicality becomes a main mediator between the onstage action and the physical presence of the viewer. In this case, the dance itself, absent the actor’s dramatization, is of less interest for Korniag: I work with the drama actors only. I care about a man acting with his body more than about dancing. The director gives a great meaning to the space. He breaks the famous fourth wall and the traditional box of the scene in his performances: characters speak directly to the audience, go to the audience hall, explore and learn the space that is not provided for the theater. There are no stage decorations in its conventional sense in performances of Korniag. They are reduced to objects, a kind of symbols and signs necessary for dramatic action. With the dematerializing of the stage space, director creates abstracted, figurative scenes and thereby deprives the time-space of the performance of its unambiguous meanings. The most important means of aesthetic influence in the situation of an almost empty stage is then lighting. A light and dark shade dramaturgy carefully designed by director not only helps the modelling of space and objects, but also creates a special atmosphere of action. Sound is equally important component of the stage synthesis for Korniag. It is precisely the music that becomes the impetus for the creation of a visual image for him. Whether it is a remake or music specially composed for the play, or even lack of it — in each case, the music is an emotional tuning fork of the action that characterizes its atmosphere and resonates with each inner character’s space.
Performances of Korniag Theatre destabilize, slap the nerves of the audience. Each performance becomes a challenge for social being and the viewer. The director is not satisfied with the philistine opposition of entertainment and edification prevailing in the official repertoire theaters. He appeals to the thinking serious-minded public, who is not looking for the theater filled with joy and a feast for the eyes, looking for relaxation and senseless or light sense shows, he is creating a discourse, he thinks about who we are, where are we from and where are we going? There is an ultimate goal of experimentalism and provocative performances by Evgeny Korniag — to break into the souls and spiritual level of modern man, to encourage the overcoming of stereotypes, in release from the generally accepted restrictions, contingent feelings and habits, from norms in estimates and judgments, from everyday masks and roles — from spam, which people daily clog theirs minds and souls. The director covers taboo topics in officially declared culture: abortion, anorexia, drug addiction, violence and oppression of the individual. And yes, Evgeny Korniag avoids political affairs, but in an associative and metaphorical form his performances reflect the views, attitude, and peculiarities of the mentality of his generation. This makes Korniag Theatre an exceptional phenomenon in the context of native theatre culture, as its artistic director is not afraid to address the painful issues and ulcers of society in the performances, which are normally displaced to the periphery, are in the off-screen space of consciousness of the modern Belarusian society.
About
In calling his performance Not a Dance, Evgeny Korniag separates himself from the familiar dance forms on stage, he also avoids using predictable staging techniques. The most important source of deep meaning here is from the actor, so called body thoughts and acting through the body. Scene development in the Not a Dance performance is devoid of linearity and narrative (a simple plot development), as if it is a melange of relatively complete episode-frames. The cross-cutting theme of Violence unites all of the ministories into one dramatic whole. The director conceptualized it as widely as possible — from the emotional aggression and brutality of everyday human relationships, to allusions on the social catastrophes of the 20th century. Metastasis of hate and mindless rage (anger) poison everything: a loving relationship and relationships between nations, which destroy each other. The conceptual plan is fully consistent with the musical solution. German, French, English, Jewish music, as well as original music composed by the Belarusian composer Alexandra Danshova enhance and emphasize the main image of the performance — the image of violence, which has no national definition. Evgeny Korniag does worry about about the audience reactions. He provokes them. The director destroys the famous fourth wall and breaks the traditional performing space, forcing the audience not only to behold the violence, but also to feel it.
Premiered in 2007 Author and Artistic Director: Evgeny Korniag Composer: Alexandra Danshova / Actors: Ekaterina Averkova / Alla Volynets / Valentina Gartsueva / Valery Zhuravlev / Alexandr Kazello / Natalya Kirsanova / Marina Klimovich / Alexandr Ilyin / Sergey Fromichev
Not a Dance
In calling his performance Not a Dance, Evgeny Korniag separates himself from the familiar dance forms on stage, he also avoids using predictable staging techniques. The most important source of deep meaning here is from the actor, so called body thoughts and acting through the body. Scene development in the Not a Dance performance is devoid of linearity and narrative (a simple plot development), as if it is a melange of relatively complete episode-frames. The cross-cutting theme of Violence unites all of the ministories into one dramatic whole. The director conceptualized it as widely as possible — from the emotional aggression and brutality of everyday human relationships, to allusions on the social catastrophes of the 20th century. Metastasis of hate and mindless rage (anger) poison everything: a loving relationship and relationships between nations, which destroy each other. The conceptual plan is fully consistent with the musical solution. German, French, English, Jewish music, as well as original music composed by the Belarusian composer Alexandra Danshova enhance and emphasize the main image of the performance — the image of violence, which has no national definition. Evgeny Korniag does worry about about the audience reactions. He provokes them. The director destroys the famous fourth wall and breaks the traditional performing space, forcing the audience not only to behold the violence, but also to feel it.
Premiered in 2007 Author and Artistic Director: Evgeny Korniag Composer: Alexandra Danshova / Actors: Ekaterina Averkova / Alla Volynets / Valentina Gartsueva / Valery Zhuravlev / Alexandr Kazello / Natalya Kirsanova / Marina Klimovich / Alexandr Ilyin / Sergey Fromichev
Not a Dance
In calling his performance Not a Dance, Evgeny Korniag separates himself from the familiar dance forms on stage, he also avoids using predictable staging techniques. The most important source of deep meaning here is from the actor, so called body thoughts and acting through the body. Scene development in the Not a Dance performance is devoid of linearity and narrative (a simple plot development), as if it is a melange of relatively complete episode-frames. The cross-cutting theme of Violence unites all of the ministories into one dramatic whole. The director conceptualized it as widely as possible — from the emotional aggression and brutality of everyday human relationships, to allusions on the social catastrophes of the 20th century. Metastasis of hate and mindless rage (anger) poison everything: a loving relationship and relationships between nations, which destroy each other. The conceptual plan is fully consistent with the musical solution. German, French, English, Jewish music, as well as original music composed by the Belarusian composer Alexandra Danshova enhance and emphasize the main image of the performance — the image of violence, which has no national definition. Evgeny Korniag does worry about about the audience reactions. He provokes them. The director destroys the famous fourth wall and breaks the traditional performing space, forcing the audience not only to behold the violence, but also to feel it.
Premiered in 2007 Author and Artistic Director: Evgeny Korniag Composer: Alexandra Danshova / Actors: Ekaterina Averkova / Alla Volynets / Valentina Gartsueva / Valery Zhuravlev / Alexandr Kazello / Natalya Kirsanova / Marina Klimovich / Alexandr Ilyin / Sergey Fromichev
Not a Dance
In calling his performance Not a Dance, Evgeny Korniag separates himself from the familiar dance forms on stage, he also avoids using predictable staging techniques. The most important source of deep meaning here is from the actor, so called body thoughts and acting through the body. Scene development in the Not a Dance performance is devoid of linearity and narrative (a simple plot development), as if it is a melange of relatively complete episode-frames. The cross-cutting theme of Violence unites all of the ministories into one dramatic whole. The director conceptualized it as widely as possible — from the emotional aggression and brutality of everyday human relationships, to allusions on the social catastrophes of the 20th century. Metastasis of hate and mindless rage (anger) poison everything: a loving relationship and relationships between nations, which destroy each other. The conceptual plan is fully consistent with the musical solution. German, French, English, Jewish music, as well as original music composed by the Belarusian composer Alexandra Danshova enhance and emphasize the main image of the performance — the image of violence, which has no national definition. Evgeny Korniag does worry about about the audience reactions. He provokes them. The director destroys the famous fourth wall and breaks the traditional performing space, forcing the audience not only to behold the violence, but also to feel it.
Premiered in 2007 Author and Artistic Director: Evgeny Korniag Composer: Alexandra Danshova / Actors: Ekaterina Averkova / Alla Volynets / Valentina Gartsueva / Valery Zhuravlev / Alexandr Kazello / Natalya Kirsanova / Marina Klimovich / Alexandr Ilyin / Sergey Fromichev
Not a Dance
Performance #7 — is a plastic reflection on fear. The play is a parable in which phantasmagoria and reality form a unified continuum of action. The heroes of this inverted world are strange creatures — half human, half insects. They hold together as a group because supporting each other is the only way to overcome their personal fears, the only way they can resist the general one. Their world is the borderline state between the monsters of their own subconscious, paralyzing their will and feelings, and a desire to struggle to overcome them. Everything turns into the horror of reality for the heroes of the play: they are afraid of being themselves and freely expressing their emotions, they are afraid to speak, to look at those who are sitting at the top — to the high and mighty, terrified to hear somebody knocking on the door, horrified of pregnancy, afraid to fly on a plane, finally scared to look sidelong at their trembling selves. The director is not interested in fear as an emotional phenomenon. Above all it is an existential condition for him — universal to humans regardless of gender or ethnicity. Moreover, fear here becomes quite touchable, materializing itself in the form of a monstrous creature that rising over all while sitting on a giant throne. But is fear realistic, or is it alive only in the minds of the characters? To look at the fear from a different perspective — this is what is offered to the audience by the actors and director. Meditative, static, based on hypnotic repetition of original rhythms and intonations Nik Bartsch’s music was chosen because it creates an atmosphere that is close to a trance, the best for expressing the state of consciousness of the heroes of the play. Silence in the Performance #7 is more than just an expressive thing; plastic movement of human body here expresses fears more audibly than words do. Words, if pronounced, are pulled out like inarticulate sounds, in foghorn voice, only reinforcing the plastic score for the whole action.
Premiered on 10 June 2011 Author and Artistic Director: Evgeny Korniag Art Director: Tatiana Nersisyan / Composer: Nik Bartsch (Switzerland) / Design: Sergey Shabohin Project Director: Marina Dashuk / Actors: Svetlana Anikey / Valentina Gartsueva / Alexander Kasello / Vitaly Kravchenko / Olga Skvortsova
Performance #7
Performance #7 — is a plastic reflection on fear. The play is a parable in which phantasmagoria and reality form a unified continuum of action. The heroes of this inverted world are strange creatures — half human, half insects. They hold together as a group because supporting each other is the only way to overcome their personal fears, the only way they can resist the general one. Their world is the borderline state between the monsters of their own subconscious, paralyzing their will and feelings, and a desire to struggle to overcome them. Everything turns into the horror of reality for the heroes of the play: they are afraid of being themselves and freely expressing their emotions, they are afraid to speak, to look at those who are sitting at the top — to the high and mighty, terrified to hear somebody knocking on the door, horrified of pregnancy, afraid to fly on a plane, finally scared to look sidelong at their trembling selves. The director is not interested in fear as an emotional phenomenon. Above all it is an existential condition for him — universal to humans regardless of gender or ethnicity. Moreover, fear here becomes quite touchable, materializing itself in the form of a monstrous creature that rising over all while sitting on a giant throne. But is fear realistic, or is it alive only in the minds of the characters? To look at the fear from a different perspective — this is what is offered to the audience by the actors and director. Meditative, static, based on hypnotic repetition of original rhythms and intonations Nik Bartsch’s music was chosen because it creates an atmosphere that is close to a trance, the best for expressing the state of consciousness of the heroes of the play. Silence in the Performance #7 is more than just an expressive thing; plastic movement of human body here expresses fears more audibly than words do. Words, if pronounced, are pulled out like inarticulate sounds, in foghorn voice, only reinforcing the plastic score for the whole action.
Premiered on 10 June 2011 Author and Artistic Director: Evgeny Korniag Art Director: Tatiana Nersisyan / Composer: Nik Bartsch (Switzerland) / Design: Sergey Shabohin Project Director: Marina Dashuk / Actors: Svetlana Anikey / Valentina Gartsueva / Alexander Kasello / Vitaly Kravchenko / Olga Skvortsova
Performance #7
Performance #7 — is a plastic reflection on fear. The play is a parable in which phantasmagoria and reality form a unified continuum of action. The heroes of this inverted world are strange creatures — half human, half insects. They hold together as a group because supporting each other is the only way to overcome their personal fears, the only way they can resist the general one. Their world is the borderline state between the monsters of their own subconscious, paralyzing their will and feelings, and a desire to struggle to overcome them. Everything turns into the horror of reality for the heroes of the play: they are afraid of being themselves and freely expressing their emotions, they are afraid to speak, to look at those who are sitting at the top — to the high and mighty, terrified to hear somebody knocking on the door, horrified of pregnancy, afraid to fly on a plane, finally scared to look sidelong at their trembling selves. The director is not interested in fear as an emotional phenomenon. Above all it is an existential condition for him — universal to humans regardless of gender or ethnicity. Moreover, fear here becomes quite touchable, materializing itself in the form of a monstrous creature that rising over all while sitting on a giant throne. But is fear realistic, or is it alive only in the minds of the characters? To look at the fear from a different perspective — this is what is offered to the audience by the actors and director. Meditative, static, based on hypnotic repetition of original rhythms and intonations Nik Bartsch’s music was chosen because it creates an atmosphere that is close to a trance, the best for expressing the state of consciousness of the heroes of the play. Silence in the Performance #7 is more than just an expressive thing; plastic movement of human body here expresses fears more audibly than words do. Words, if pronounced, are pulled out like inarticulate sounds, in foghorn voice, only reinforcing the plastic score for the whole action.
Premiered on 10 June 2011 Author and Artistic Director: Evgeny Korniag Art Director: Tatiana Nersisyan / Composer: Nik Bartsch (Switzerland) / Design: Sergey Shabohin Project Director: Marina Dashuk / Actors: Svetlana Anikey / Valentina Gartsueva / Alexander Kasello / Vitaly Kravchenko / Olga Skvortsova
Performance #7
Performance #7 — is a plastic reflection on fear. The play is a parable in which phantasmagoria and reality form a unified continuum of action. The heroes of this inverted world are strange creatures — half human, half insects. They hold together as a group because supporting each other is the only way to overcome their personal fears, the only way they can resist the general one. Their world is the borderline state between the monsters of their own subconscious, paralyzing their will and feelings, and a desire to struggle to overcome them. Everything turns into the horror of reality for the heroes of the play: they are afraid of being themselves and freely expressing their emotions, they are afraid to speak, to look at those who are sitting at the top — to the high and mighty, terrified to hear somebody knocking on the door, horrified of pregnancy, afraid to fly on a plane, finally scared to look sidelong at their trembling selves. The director is not interested in fear as an emotional phenomenon. Above all it is an existential condition for him — universal to humans regardless of gender or ethnicity. Moreover, fear here becomes quite touchable, materializing itself in the form of a monstrous creature that rising over all while sitting on a giant throne. But is fear realistic, or is it alive only in the minds of the characters? To look at the fear from a different perspective — this is what is offered to the audience by the actors and director. Meditative, static, based on hypnotic repetition of original rhythms and intonations Nik Bartsch’s music was chosen because it creates an atmosphere that is close to a trance, the best for expressing the state of consciousness of the heroes of the play. Silence in the Performance #7 is more than just an expressive thing; plastic movement of human body here expresses fears more audibly than words do. Words, if pronounced, are pulled out like inarticulate sounds, in foghorn voice, only reinforcing the plastic score for the whole action.
Premiered on 10 June 2011 Author and Artistic Director: Evgeny Korniag Art Director: Tatiana Nersisyan / Composer: Nik Bartsch (Switzerland) / Design: Sergey Shabohin Project Director: Marina Dashuk / Actors: Svetlana Anikey / Valentina Gartsueva / Alexander Kasello / Vitaly Kravchenko / Olga Skvortsova
Performance #7
Through physical and psychophysical effects the director speaks about painful actual phenomena of our time — gender phobias, sexual frustrations, the crisis of masculinity, and the traditional image of what a real man is. Topics like this are taboo in the officially declared framed culture and strike against the escape from reality aesthetics which now dominate in the Belarusian Repertory Theater. Heroes of the performance are deprived of their usual personal and social qualities. They are men and women in general — in their archetypal meaning. The physiology of the naked body shows a human being out of civilization, such as it is. The women in the play are hyperactive, their behavior and external appearance, subverting conventional image of a gentle femininity, reject social and cultural well-established standards. Their communicative language — temptation, aggression and violence are also pathological. Their behavior is controlled by a vital energy, similar to the one Josef Brodsky called metaphysical instinct. On the other hand, the men are infantile and totally passive. Their bodily and mental shapes do not match the stereotypical image of the real men — strong aggressive and macho. In the social immaturity and helplessness of his characters the director doesn’t just highlight, but also brings to the absurd, with deliberately over elevated urinals, where men are trying to reach with their final effort. When one of them triumphantly soars skyward near the coveted objects, it turns into a performance, masquerade, ending with the fall of the fancied cothurnus of masculinity and sobs that transform into a scream. The cry becomes extremely important in the performance. This is a sound that is close to the value, which occurs in Marquis de Sade prose:The Scream — is pre-symbolic usage of the voice, the voice before language took it over ... It’s a voice pivoted to the purely material movement ... Sound, which is not yet a language, but at the same time it indicates that the language is not here, that it was destroyed ... It was all brought to the limit, to the extremity: touches that hurt, embraces that choke, and all those who have tasted the love dropped dead like poisoned.
Author and Artistic Director: Evgeny Korniag Scenography: Tatiana Nersisyan Actors: Anna Gospodarik / Grahzina Yanulevich / Yulia Verhovskaya / Artem Gajko / Ivan Strelcov / Maxim Shishko / Andrej Novik / Pavel Terehov / Nikita Bondarenko / Nikita Zolotar / Marat Vojcehovich
Latent Men
Through physical and psychophysical effects the director speaks about painful actual phenomena of our time — gender phobias, sexual frustrations, the crisis of masculinity, and the traditional image of what a real man is. Topics like this are taboo in the officially declared framed culture and strike against the escape from reality aesthetics which now dominate in the Belarusian Repertory Theater. Heroes of the performance are deprived of their usual personal and social qualities. They are men and women in general — in their archetypal meaning. The physiology of the naked body shows a human being out of civilization, such as it is. The women in the play are hyperactive, their behavior and external appearance, subverting conventional image of a gentle femininity, reject social and cultural well-established standards. Their communicative language — temptation, aggression and violence are also pathological. Their behavior is controlled by a vital energy, similar to the one Josef Brodsky called metaphysical instinct. On the other hand, the men are infantile and totally passive. Their bodily and mental shapes do not match the stereotypical image of the real men — strong aggressive and macho. In the social immaturity and helplessness of his characters the director doesn’t just highlight, but also brings to the absurd, with deliberately over elevated urinals, where men are trying to reach with their final effort. When one of them triumphantly soars skyward near the coveted objects, it turns into a performance, masquerade, ending with the fall of the fancied cothurnus of masculinity and sobs that transform into a scream. The cry becomes extremely important in the performance. This is a sound that is close to the value, which occurs in Marquis de Sade prose:The Scream — is pre-symbolic usage of the voice, the voice before language took it over ... It’s a voice pivoted to the purely material movement ... Sound, which is not yet a language, but at the same time it indicates that the language is not here, that it was destroyed ... It was all brought to the limit, to the extremity: touches that hurt, embraces that choke, and all those who have tasted the love dropped dead like poisoned
Author and Artistic Director: Evgeny Korniag Scenography: Tatiana Nersisyan Actors: Anna Gospodarik / Grahzina Yanulevich / Yulia Verhovskaya / Artem Gajko / Ivan Strelcov / Maxim Shishko / Andrej Novik / Pavel Terehov / Nikita Bondarenko / Nikita Zolotar / Marat Vojcehovich
Latent Men
Through physical and psychophysical effects the director speaks about painful actual phenomena of our time — gender phobias, sexual frustrations, the crisis of masculinity, and the traditional image of what a real man is. Topics like this are taboo in the officially declared framed culture and strike against the escape from reality aesthetics which now dominate in the Belarusian Repertory Theater. Heroes of the performance are deprived of their usual personal and social qualities. They are men and women in general — in their archetypal meaning. The physiology of the naked body shows a human being out of civilization, such as it is. The women in the play are hyperactive, their behavior and external appearance, subverting conventional image of a gentle femininity, reject social and cultural well-established standards. Their communicative language — temptation, aggression and violence are also pathological. Their behavior is controlled by a vital energy, similar to the one Josef Brodsky called metaphysical instinct. On the other hand, the men are infantile and totally passive. Their bodily and mental shapes do not match the stereotypical image of the real men — strong aggressive and macho. In the social immaturity and helplessness of his characters the director doesn’t just highlight, but also brings to the absurd, with deliberately over elevated urinals, where men are trying to reach with their final effort. When one of them triumphantly soars skyward near the coveted objects, it turns into a performance, masquerade, ending with the fall of the fancied cothurnus of masculinity and sobs that transform into a scream. The cry becomes extremely important in the performance. This is a sound that is close to the value, which occurs in Marquis de Sade prose:The Scream — is pre-symbolic usage of the voice, the voice before language took it over ... It’s a voice pivoted to the purely material movement ... Sound, which is not yet a language, but at the same time it indicates that the language is not here, that it was destroyed ... It was all brought to the limit, to the extremity: touches that hurt, embraces that choke, and all those who have tasted the love dropped dead like poisoned
Author and Artistic Director: Evgeny Korniag Scenography: Tatiana Nersisyan Actors: Anna Gospodarik / Grahzina Yanulevich / Yulia Verhovskaya / Artem Gajko / Ivan Strelcov / Maxim Shishko / Andrej Novik / Pavel Terehov / Nikita Bondarenko / Nikita Zolotar / Marat Vojcehovich
Latent Men
Through physical and psychophysical effects the director speaks about painful actual phenomena of our time — gender phobias, sexual frustrations, the crisis of masculinity, and the traditional image of what a real man is. Topics like this are taboo in the officially declared framed culture and strike against the escape from reality aesthetics which now dominate in the Belarusian Repertory Theater. Heroes of the performance are deprived of their usual personal and social qualities. They are men and women in general — in their archetypal meaning. The physiology of the naked body shows a human being out of civilization, such as it is. The women in the play are hyperactive, their behavior and external appearance, subverting conventional image of a gentle femininity, reject social and cultural well-established standards. Their communicative language — temptation, aggression and violence are also pathological. Their behavior is controlled by a vital energy, similar to the one Josef Brodsky called metaphysical instinct. On the other hand, the men are infantile and totally passive. Their bodily and mental shapes do not match the stereotypical image of the real men — strong aggressive and macho. In the social immaturity and helplessness of his characters the director doesn’t just highlight, but also brings to the absurd, with deliberately over elevated urinals, where men are trying to reach with their final effort. When one of them triumphantly soars skyward near the coveted objects, it turns into a performance, masquerade, ending with the fall of the fancied cothurnus of masculinity and sobs that transform into a scream. The cry becomes extremely important in the performance. This is a sound that is close to the value, which occurs in Marquis de Sade prose:The Scream — is pre-symbolic usage of the voice, the voice before language took it over ... It’s a voice pivoted to the purely material movement ... Sound, which is not yet a language, but at the same time it indicates that the language is not here, that it was destroyed ... It was all brought to the limit, to the extremity: touches that hurt, embraces that choke, and all those who have tasted the love dropped dead like poisoned
Author and Artistic Director: Evgeny Korniag Scenography: Tatiana Nersisyan Actors: Anna Gospodarik / Grahzina Yanulevich / Yulia Verhovskaya / Artem Gajko / Ivan Strelcov / Maxim Shishko / Andrej Novik / Pavel Terehov / Nikita Bondarenko / Nikita Zolotar / Marat Vojcehovich
Latent Men
Done away with theatre! — slogan on the poster says. Indeed, nothing in its conventional sense remains from the theater, where action is played out on the stage in front of the audience that is sitting primly in chairs, except actors, in this performance directed by Evgeny Korniag. In the play Cafe ‘Absorption’ the director continues to experiment with the theatrical space where the action periodically goes beyond the stage and invades the audience hall. The play has no stage conventionalities and has been transferred to a nightclub. Actors are dispersed among the audience, and sometimes it is difficult to distinguish them from the public. The director breaks the boundaries between the everyday reality and the action space, roping the audience into what is happening and causing a reaction. The performance at a nightclub is nothing new today. But the innovation here is that the topic of a nightclub itself, its atmosphere and lifestyle have never appeared before in the Belarusian theatrical practice. The name of the play — Café ‘Absorption’ — was not an accidental choice. Its characters live their lives at a high tempo, live fast in the club, turning it into a party round the clock. Their Universe is a virtual world of someone else’s truth artificial myths and behavioral stereotypes gleaned from glossy bibles or a TV diva’s revelations. Tons of makeup, along with drugs and diets have seared their bodies, brandomania turned them into clones, and passive informational consumerism atrophied their feelings and thoughts. The image of the nightclub and its partygoers are just a starting point for the director. It has also become a generalizing metaphor for thinking about the garbage that every modern human gluts his body and soul with. However, the performance is also about the gaping, terrifying emptiness inside character’s souls, with no opportunity to fill it with the things they choose over and over again, things like entertainment, visiting showrooms and secular fashionable parties. Along with the action a moment of a truth for each of them comes, and the space of the nightclub turns into a kind of purgatory, where the characters see themselves and their lives in genuine light.
Premiered on on February 6, 2009 Author and Artistic Director: Evgeny Korniag Choreographer: Olga Skvortsova / Artist: Sergey Shabohin / Project Director: Marina Dashuk / Actors: Ekaterina Averkova / Valentina Gartsueva / Alexander Kasello / Marina Klimovich / Natalya Kirsanova / Alena Kozyreva / Julia Morozova / Olga Skvortsova / Juliana Mihnevich / Nikolay Kazantsev
Cafe ‘Absorption’
Done away with theatre! — slogan on the poster says. Indeed, nothing in its conventional sense remains from the theater, where action is played out on the stage in front of the audience that is sitting primly in chairs, except actors, in this performance directed by Evgeny Korniag. In the play Cafe ‘Absorption’ the director continues to experiment with the theatrical space where the action periodically goes beyond the stage and invades the audience hall. The play has no stage conventionalities and has been transferred to a nightclub. Actors are dispersed among the audience, and sometimes it is difficult to distinguish them from the public. The director breaks the boundaries between the everyday reality and the action space, roping the audience into what is happening and causing a reaction. The performance at a nightclub is nothing new today. But the innovation here is that the topic of a nightclub itself, its atmosphere and lifestyle have never appeared before in the Belarusian theatrical practice. The name of the play — Café ‘Absorption’ — was not an accidental choice. Its characters live their lives at a high tempo, live fast in the club, turning it into a party round the clock. Their Universe is a virtual world of someone else’s truth artificial myths and behavioral stereotypes gleaned from glossy bibles or a TV diva’s revelations. Tons of makeup, along with drugs and diets have seared their bodies, brandomania turned them into clones, and passive informational consumerism atrophied their feelings and thoughts. The image of the nightclub and its partygoers are just a starting point for the director. It has also become a generalizing metaphor for thinking about the garbage that every modern human gluts his body and soul with. However, the performance is also about the gaping, terrifying emptiness inside character’s souls, with no opportunity to fill it with the things they choose over and over again, things like entertainment, visiting showrooms and secular fashionable parties. Along with the action a moment of a truth for each of them comes, and the space of the nightclub turns into a kind of purgatory, where the characters see themselves and their lives in genuine light.
Premiered on on February 6, 2009 Author and Artistic Director: Evgeny Korniag Choreographer: Olga Skvortsova / Artist: Sergey Shabohin / Project Director: Marina Dashuk / Actors: Ekaterina Averkova / Valentina Gartsueva / Alexander Kasello / Marina Klimovich / Natalya Kirsanova / Alena Kozyreva / Julia Morozova / Olga Skvortsova / Juliana Mihnevich / Nikolay Kazantsev
Cafe ‘Absorption’
Done away with theatre! — slogan on the poster says. Indeed, nothing in its conventional sense remains from the theater, where action is played out on the stage in front of the audience that is sitting primly in chairs, except actors, in this performance directed by Evgeny Korniag. In the play Cafe ‘Absorption’ the director continues to experiment with the theatrical space where the action periodically goes beyond the stage and invades the audience hall. The play has no stage conventionalities and has been transferred to a nightclub. Actors are dispersed among the audience, and sometimes it is difficult to distinguish them from the public. The director breaks the boundaries between the everyday reality and the action space, roping the audience into what is happening and causing a reaction. The performance at a nightclub is nothing new today. But the innovation here is that the topic of a nightclub itself, its atmosphere and lifestyle have never appeared before in the Belarusian theatrical practice. The name of the play — Café ‘Absorption’ — was not an accidental choice. Its characters live their lives at a high tempo, live fast in the club, turning it into a party round the clock. Their Universe is a virtual world of someone else’s truth artificial myths and behavioral stereotypes gleaned from glossy bibles or a TV diva’s revelations. Tons of makeup, along with drugs and diets have seared their bodies, brandomania turned them into clones, and passive informational consumerism atrophied their feelings and thoughts. The image of the nightclub and its partygoers are just a starting point for the director. It has also become a generalizing metaphor for thinking about the garbage that every modern human gluts his body and soul with. However, the performance is also about the gaping, terrifying emptiness inside character’s souls, with no opportunity to fill it with the things they choose over and over again, things like entertainment, visiting showrooms and secular fashionable parties. Along with the action a moment of a truth for each of them comes, and the space of the nightclub turns into a kind of purgatory, where the characters see themselves and their lives in genuine light.
Premiered on on February 6, 2009 Author and Artistic Director: Evgeny Korniag Choreographer: Olga Skvortsova / Artist: Sergey Shabohin / Project Director: Marina Dashuk / Actors: Ekaterina Averkova / Valentina Gartsueva / Alexander Kasello / Marina Klimovich / Natalya Kirsanova / Alena Kozyreva / Julia Morozova / Olga Skvortsova / Juliana Mihnevich / Nikolay Kazantsev
Cafe ‘Absorption’
Done away with theatre! — slogan on the poster says. Indeed, nothing in its conventional sense remains from the theater, where action is played out on the stage in front of the audience that is sitting primly in chairs, except actors, in this performance directed by Evgeny Korniag. In the play Cafe ‘Absorption’ the director continues to experiment with the theatrical space where the action periodically goes beyond the stage and invades the audience hall. The play has no stage conventionalities and has been transferred to a nightclub. Actors are dispersed among the audience, and sometimes it is difficult to distinguish them from the public. The director breaks the boundaries between the everyday reality and the action space, roping the audience into what is happening and causing a reaction. The performance at a nightclub is nothing new today. But the innovation here is that the topic of a nightclub itself, its atmosphere and lifestyle have never appeared before in the Belarusian theatrical practice. The name of the play — Café ‘Absorption’ — was not an accidental choice. Its characters live their lives at a high tempo, live fast in the club, turning it into a party round the clock. Their Universe is a virtual world of someone else’s truth artificial myths and behavioral stereotypes gleaned from glossy bibles or a TV diva’s revelations. Tons of makeup, along with drugs and diets have seared their bodies, brandomania turned them into clones, and passive informational consumerism atrophied their feelings and thoughts. The image of the nightclub and its partygoers are just a starting point for the director. It has also become a generalizing metaphor for thinking about the garbage that every modern human gluts his body and soul with. However, the performance is also about the gaping, terrifying emptiness inside character’s souls, with no opportunity to fill it with the things they choose over and over again, things like entertainment, visiting showrooms and secular fashionable parties. Along with the action a moment of a truth for each of them comes, and the space of the nightclub turns into a kind of purgatory, where the characters see themselves and their lives in genuine light.
Premiered on on February 6, 2009 Author and Artistic Director: Evgeny Korniag Choreographer: Olga Skvortsova / Artist: Sergey Shabohin / Project Director: Marina Dashuk / Actors: Ekaterina Averkova / Valentina Gartsueva / Alexander Kasello / Marina Klimovich / Natalya Kirsanova / Alena Kozyreva / Julia Morozova / Olga Skvortsova / Juliana Mihnevich / Nikolay Kazantsev
Cafe ‘Absorption’
Contact: e: korniag.theatre@gmail.com w: http://korniag-theatre.com Director: Marina Dashuk Creative Director: Evgeny Korniag Facebook: KorniagTHEATRE VK: http://vk.com/korniagtheatre YouTube: Dashuk Marina Photo credit: Elena Zhukova / Alexander Zhdanovich Brochure Design: Vera Reshto